


Texture

by morganya



Category: Queer Eye for the Straight Guy RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-12-21
Updated: 2003-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-10 13:40:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/100374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganya/pseuds/morganya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everybody knows who really runs the Wardrobe Department.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Texture

  
With Jai, everything is raw silk and satin. It is Jai's fingers rushing over silk shirts and leather belts on the rack, barely pausing to register them. He only focuses on what he can see, all of the sparkles and bright colors overriding any other sense he might have, ignoring everything else, and Carson tries to tell him to forget about the look of the clothes, focus on the feeling, how something feels next to your skin, lollipop, and Jai is too distracted by the shine to listen. It is Carson thinking, _Oh, impetuous youth,_ and then freaking out a little because he's just realized no amount of tanning can disguise the beginnings of lines around his mouth and eyes. And he's _not_ being neurotic, he's just feeling a little too well-preserved next to Jai, who glows and shines just as much as that shirt he insisted on wearing. _Life begins at thirty, my ass._

"Wonder if it's too early to invest in a face-lift?" Carson turns to the mirror and pushes the skin back from his face so he looks like a cadaver. "Okay, that might be a little too David Gest-like, right there."

"But you don't _need_ it," Jai says in a reassuring blast of surgery-squeamishness. "I heard they, like, take your face off and then put it back on and stuff."

"Price of beauty."

"Oh, yeah?" Jai says. He's not that good at the give-and-take yet, poor darling. "Oh, yeah?" And then Jai is laughing and nuzzling the back of his neck. "Your hair's in my face," breath hot on Carson's skin. Hands creeping under his shirt, the backs of Jai's fingernails running up and down Carson's spine.

"You're just a dirty old man in a cute little package," Carson says, and Jai says, "Honey, you don't know the _half_ of it."

It is Jai's leg, the muscles like tightly woven ropes, bent at the knee, foot arched like a ballet dancer's, wrapped around Carson's waist, an impromptu tango. It is Jai saying, "So is this happening? Is this happening now?" and Carson saying, "You're an impatient little bunny, aren't you?" It is the both of them falling together against the clothing rack, Jai yelping and then giggling.

Carson presses his mouth to Jai's and tastes the silk.

*****

With Thom, it is denim, stone-washed, worn so long it clings to you like a second skin, so that you almost forget its original roughness. If he could get away with it, Thom would wear a pair of jeans and a lumberjack's shirt every day.

"You look like you tumbled out of the pages of _American Backwoodsman_," Carson tells him. "Here, let me find you a hunting cap and a shotgun, you can accessorize."

Thom frowns. He scans the clothing rack. "I can wear this instead." He is touching a polo shirt the color of burnt umber.

"Not unless you want to look like Ralph Lauren visits the crack den."

"You know, considering what I work with, I don't think I can walk around wearing leeeetle tiny shirts and ties around my waist..."

"Why not?"

Thom raises an eyebrow, thumbs hooked into his belt, the urban cowboy. "Because you'd kill me if I got a spot of paint on one of your ensembles?"

"I hear that the fingerpaint look is very in these days."

"I think you hear a lot of things. Most of them are voices in your head, but..."

"Don't criticize my sources." Carson steps forward, tjuzing Thom's sleeves. The cotton is soft under his fingers, bright stripes of blue and green against Thom's skin. "Eh. Not perfection, but I haven't got much to work with here."

Thom stares down at him patiently, the Roman emperor being prepared before meeting the senate. "I'm beginning to suspect," Carson says, "that you only let me do this because you like being fussed over."

Thom runs a finger around Carson's collar and down the front of his shirt, as though he were planning a route on a map. "It sure isn't for the fashion advice," he says, and laughs.

_Must...have...revenge..._ Carson tickles Thom's belly, Thom twisting away, laughing harder, slapping at his hands. "Carson, Carson, I'm sorry."

"I'm going to tell them to get rid of all your clothes," Carson threatens. "Replace them all with hula skirts and football jerseys."

"Aww." Thom wraps his arms around Carson's shoulders. He rests his chin on top of Carson's head and sways, back and forth, back and forth. "You know I love you."

"Shameless flattery," Carson says against Thom's broad shoulder, his voice muffled by cotton. "Gets you nowhere."

"Does it?" Thom asks, still swaying. "Does it really?"

*****

With Kyan, it is bare skin, no need for any adornment. Kyan is entirely unacquainted with modesty. To him, the body is a structure that he happens to reside in, one that he can regard with objective fascination.

Kyan stands wearing nothing but his jockeys in the middle of the Wardrobe Department, supposedly changing, but all he seems to be doing is pushing hangers around on the rack. He reminds Carson of the models that he used to sketch when he was back at Gettysburg, the pleasant, poker-faced men and women who would saunter into Life Drawing in a terrycloth robe, drinking coffee and saying a few words to the professor before getting up and dropping the robe without so much as a la-di-da-now-I'm-naked. It wasn't sexual; they just seemed entirely unaware that other people might be watching.

Carson's never quite sure if he's actually supposed to look at Kyan at all, if he's just supposed to keep chatting mindlessly and not think about Kyan's arms or his legs or his chest or his back, about everything about Kyan flowing together seamlessly, arms legs chest back, and he wishes he hadn't left his cigarettes in the other room. That might give him something to do with his hands.

He starts to feel awkward in his clothes, as though he's breaking the rules in some way, and it figures that Kyan's the one who's one step away from being naked and he's the one feeling embarrassed. He's spent half his life letting his clothes define him.

"Um," Carson says, and then repeats it, because it seems as good a statement as any, "Um."

Kyan turns his head, raising his eyebrows. "Dude, you have _got_ to let me do something with your roots. You're looking a little bi-colored, there."

"I'm going for the Heather Locklear look. Melrose Place era," Carson says. _Okay, that's a good idea, keep making jokes, that could work._ He considers saying, "You know, it's cold in here, you're going to see some shrinkage," but that could be construed as saying, "Could you at least put a shirt on, jackass?" and the more rational part of his brain says, _So it's a little weird, there's still a half-naked man in front of you, so keep your mouth shut if you know what's good for you._

"Check this out," Kyan says.

"Believe me, I have been," Carson says, before he can stop himself. He never really had much of a relationship with the rational part of his brain, anyway.

"Pervert," Kyan says cheerily. "C'mere."

"Why, what're you going to do?"

"Nothing. Just look how cool this is." Kyan stretches out his left arm, palm facing the ceiling, fingers splayed. Carson can see the faint lines of his veins, like little rivers. Kyan traces them with his index finger. "People don't think about things like this. What's going on under the skin."

Carson presses two fingers against the thin blue-green lines. He ignores the heat of Kyan's skin, the texture velvety soft, his faint sandalwoody smell. He imagines he can feel the blood running through Kyan's body, slow and steady, each pulse a tiny flutter of his heart.

*****

With Ted, it is fleece; it's so light and soft that the warmth becomes an afterthought.

Ted makes his own clothing choices. Early on, Carson would say, "Oh, look, you're channeling Ward Cleaver again," and Ted would say, "Hmm. Really?" and wear it anyway.

"We'll make a supermodel out of you yet," Carson promises.

"I'm sure."

Ted's not above temptation. Carson's seen his eyes linger over the velvet shirts and long leather coats on the rack. Ted will never admit it, but Carson's rubbing off on him. Carson only deems it polite to let him think he's got the upper hand for now.

"Try this," Carson says, pointing to a dark purple button-down. "Very regal."

"It's a little too...um...you. I'll stick with what I have for now." Ted's arm is draped around his shoulders. He paws through the rack distractedly, and Carson knows he's probably not going to pick anything out, he's just wasting time before he has to leave. Carson's not about to tell him to stop.

"Hmm?" Carson says and indicates a pair of blue and yellow plaid pants.

"Oh, good Lord, no."

Carson sighs. "The things I have to put up with around here..." He massages Ted's neck slowly with one hand. Ted rolls his head against the motion.

"Mmm. Yeah. Keep doing that."

"You are like one big knot," Carson says. He presses down with the heel of his palm, smoothing the muscles out. "It's because you're so uptight."

Ted smiles. "Well, someone has to be."

"Contractual requirement."

"Exactly."

They've basically stopped even pretending to look for clothes. Ted squeezes his shoulder encouragingly.

Of course, somebody has to knock on the Wardrobe door.

Carson takes his hand away. Ted rolls his eyes and shrugs, preparing to leave. Before he does, he leans in and brushes his mouth against the curve of Carson's ear, hand against his stomach.

"I think you'll find I'm not _that_ uptight."

*****

By himself, it hardly even matters. Carson steps out of Wardrobe, slipping the key that he's charmed the executives into letting him keep into his pocket, and heads out towards the van.

They're all waiting for him outside, faces tolerant and bemused as he hurries towards the car. "Fashionably late, fashionably late."

He hops into the seat beside Thom and they're off. Jai is chattering about some wonderful new thing that he's found out about recently, and Thom is teasing Jai, and Kyan is in full big-brother mode and backing Jai up, and Ted is just looking at them all, smiling and no doubt laughing gently to himself, and Carson settles back, for once wordlessly content, proud and unashamed.


End file.
